Who controls a woman’s body?

Isha Khanna has always been thin. While some people praised her, others called her words like ‘stick’. Pic courtesy/Isha Khanna

The early aughts were the era of heroin chic, Kareena Kapoor was famously size zero in Tashan (2008), and Kate Moss had just said, "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."

Then, we entered the 2010s with a new-found love for slim thick bodies, pioneered by the Kardashian clan. There was a wave of body positivity, Victoria's Secret started featuring plus-size models, we were told to "love our curves", and BBLs were all the rage.

Women's bodies have always been trends whose cycles change every decade. Now, thin is in again. Singer Ariana Grande has been making headlines over the last two years for her noticeably slimmer physical appearance and prominent weight loss. The discourse intensified following the release of her Petal music video, where viewers on social media heavily scrutinised her visible collarbones, sternum, and thin frame. Many fans expressed genuine worry that she looked malnourished or unwell, comparing her situation to other stars who publicly battled eating disorders.

The popstar then announced that she is taking a break from public life after her Eternal Sunshine Tour ends in London on September 1. Her team cited "endless, ongoing public scrutiny" over her health and physical appearance as the reason.

Dipti Sant has had an eating disorder for the last six years. Pic/Nishad Alam

When eating disorders (EDs) remain so misunderstood in the zeitgeist, how does it affect young women to see such a public idol get scrutinised for her looks? Is there any way to express concern for Grande without policing her body? What right do us onlookers have to talk about her body? Eating disorder survivors and doctors give us the answers.

Ever since I understood what food meant, I had a bad relationship with it," says 22-year-old Dipti Sant, "Since I was six or seven years old, the importance of being thin was so deeply ingrained in me. I was on the taller side, so I already looked bigger than my peers. So that didn't help my case."

When she was 15, the Delhi resident discovered that if she skipped meals, she could lose weight pretty quickly. "I was in an extremely unhealthy calorie deficit. I would eat maybe 700-800 calories a day. I would go to the gym for two hours every single day without failure. I lost around 15 kgs of weight."

The rewards of a drastic weight loss were constant compliments from loved ones. "I thought I was going in the right direction with [food] restriction. I thought maybe other people can't survive on such little food, but I could. I could make it sustainable," Sant says after a pause, "It was not sustainable."

When she went to college in Mumbai, Sant couldn't keep up with the restriction. "I developed the opposite habit. I just couldn't stop eating. I was so hungry. I hadn't eaten in years," Sant says.

Naturally, she gained some weight. "When I would come back, my family members would sit me down for an intervention to ask me why I have gained so much weight. I would tell them, ‘But I have no medical issues, I am healthy on paper,' but the interventions continued.

"I think your relationship with food starts at home. I remember being very young and being told, ‘Don't eat so much' or ‘Why are you taking a second serving?' But I'm taking a second serving of home-cooked dal. That is healthy. So I just internalised that food is bad. It doesn't matter if it was healthy or unhealthy. Eating meant gaining weight, that's all," Sant says, "Sometimes your family members don't realise that they have disordered eating themselves and they're just passing that on. They think they're doing ‘intermittent fasts' or ‘72-hour water fast' but you're starving yourself. It gets wrapped in wellness lingo, but it's still an ED."

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Sant has graduated from college now and is working in a policy think tank. "I finally feel like I'm in a place where I have autonomy over my body. Last year, I again had a relapse where I stopped eating. But I'm getting better now," she says.

How does the discourse around Grande affect her, we ask. She is hesitant to comment on another woman's body. "At the end of the day, we don't know her. We don't know what is going on in her life. She's come out and said that this is the healthiest she's ever been. So I want to believe her," Sant says, "But does it affect the life of a normal person on the Internet? It, a hundred per cent, does. I look at a lot of these influencers and models that I don't even know, and then it gets to me. It makes me want to quit the app. I deactivate my Instagram for days or months. I always think that I'm one night of doomscrolling away from waking up tomorrow and stop eating."

"These things have a way of entering culture and staying. That's why we have words like ‘heroine chic', ‘Ozempic chic', or ‘size zero'. They were all popularised by celebrity figures," Sant says. Influencer and fashion designer Isha Khanna believes "all bodies are shamed, always". She's always been thin and the way people have perceived her body has been confusing. "Coming from an Indian household means that when you're too skinny, you're considered weak. I've always eaten a lot. This is just my body," she says.

"In my adolescent years, the trendy body type was the Kardashian one. I didn't fit that at all. So on the one hand, I'm being told, ‘You're too skinny, you're a stick,' but on the other I am being praised for it as well. Because even then, being skinny is the most glorified body type. I was just confused all the time. What do you want? If I'm skinny, it's bad. But if you're fat, it's bad too. You can never win," she says.

Shruti Singh (name changed) has always been conscious of the way she looks. "If somebody comments on my body, if they say I have gained weight, that really triggers me," says the 21-year-old. In the later years of school life, "suddenly I discovered that if I don't eat, I will lose weight. And that's a very quick way to do it". "When I came to college, not eating became very accessible to me. Nobody was checking if I was eating or not. Then I realised that I was not eating for two or three days. I was just drinking a shake to survive. But I kept losing weight, so I couldn't stop," Singh says, "I still cannot stop. I don't remember the last time I ate a proper meal. When I try to eat, suddenly my stomach starts hurting. So I am not physically able to eat."

Right when her ED began, she started seeing serious health concerns start. "When I started skipping meals for the first time, I got really sick during my semester break. My immune system got damaged. I got the EBV virus. My liver was swelling. But I did not learn my lesson. I just looked at the weight loss," she says, "I can also see it in my hair quality, they're thinning and falling. Because I am not getting any vitamins."

After seeing such drastic effects of EDs, what convinces us to still keep skipping meals? What is the psychology behind not wanting to eat? "The biggest thing is the role of family. I have been body-shamed all my life, since childhood. Your family keeps commenting - whether you're thin or you're fat. My mom also tells me, ‘You are looking so nice right now. Don't gain weight," So that really enables things.

"When I skip meals, there is this sense of achievement after every meal that is skipped, thinking, ‘Oh my God, that's so nice.' I would feel prouder and prouder of myself that I had not eaten today. I like the way I look. I don't want to go back to what I was before," she says.

Too often, when one is suffering from an ED, you're not able to look at the larger picture of health. The hunger for a skinny body overpowers the hunger for food. Women's bodies are always being scrutinised, judged, and objectified. Eating disorder specialist Dr Ria Talwar says, "Often an eating disorder is a way to gain control over your life. It's kind of a double-edged sword because on the one hand, you're losing control, but it's also your coping mechanism to regain control."

When you have no control over how people might scrutinise your body, you resort to controlling meals. Because maybe that will finally get the ball in your court.

What causes an eating disorder?

Counselling psychologist and eating disorder specialist Dr Ria Talwar explains what an ED entails

Eating disorders are often mistaken for being about food alone. In reality, says eating disorder specialist Dr Ria Talwar, they're usually a coping mechanism for something much deeper. "An eating disorder is very complex. We often attribute it simply to food or eating, but there is a much larger psychological process involved," she says.

No single factor causes an eating disorder. Biology, personality traits, anxiety, trauma, low self-worth, and social influences all play a role. "Beauty standards, diet culture and constant messaging about how women and men should look all reinforce these ideas," Dr Talwar says, "Perfectionists and people who have experienced body-related trauma may be particularly vulnerable."

Dr Ria Talwar

If you're worried about a loved one, Dr Talwar advises against jumping to conclusions based on appearance. "Approach them with curiosity rather than assumptions," she says, "Instead of saying, ‘You've lost weight, you must have an eating disorder,' try, ‘I've noticed you've seemed withdrawn recently,' or, ‘I've noticed mealtimes have been difficult. Is everything okay?'"

"The body is often only the visible symptom," Dr Talwar says, "If we only address the body, we're missing the underlying distress." Leading with empathy instead of judgment creates a far safer space for someone to open up.

‘Celebrities ask for healthy 2 am snacks because they know they'll doomscroll'

Celebrity personal chef explains what relationship celebrities have with food

Celebrity personal chef and F&B consultant Aditi Keni has spent the last 17 years cooking for high-profile clients from sports stars to celebrities with Z-level security. Her work goes far beyond preparing meals. "I work with their therapists, managers, and dietitians. Together, we create a holistic lifestyle for them," she says.

Over the years, Keni has seen appearance become inseparable from food. "Earlier, people would just say, ‘I want to eat healthy, nutritious food.' Now they're saying, ‘I know I'm going to doomscroll and read something about myself online, and I need a healthy 2 am snack that won't affect the way I look.'"

Aditi Keni

She says a large part of her job is helping clients rebuild trust with food. "It's about normalising their eating patterns, no matter how bizarre they've become. It's helping them understand the difference between being hungry and being full, and slowly reintroducing foods they're petrified of."

One such fear, she says, is the "sugar monster". "The Internet has convinced everyone that all sugar is bad. But to be a high-functioning adult, your body still needs sugar. So we have to reframe that relationship."

Keni has also noticed gendered anxieties around food. "For women, it's often anorexia or fear of carbohydrates. With men, surprisingly, it's less about protein and more about collagen. They want brighter skin, to look younger and camera-ready."

GLP-1 drugs, she says, has transformed the way she cooks. "Earlier I served three large meals and a snack. Now I'm sending six or seven smaller meals because GLP-1 drugs suppress appetite. You still have to nourish the body, you just have to do it differently."

Keni believes the Ariana Grande discourse has opened up conversations around eating disorders in a way that didn't exist before, but says the public still misunderstands what recovery looks like. "Earlier, eating disorders were meant to be shushed. Nobody talked about them. Today, someone like Ariana Grande can say, ‘Yes, this is me. I don't want to talk about what's going on,' and that itself changes the conversation," she says.

While celebrity experiences can encourage more openness, she cautions that the conversation should move beyond appearance. "Earlier, the message was simply, ‘Put a finger in your mouth and throw it up because you need to look good.' That idea of what ‘looking good' means is slowly changing. There are now conversations around body positivity and ‘come as you are' that simply didn't exist before."

‘The scrutiny is what creates the problem'

Director of Gippi (2013), Sonam Nair decodes the cultural shift from body positivity to Ozempic-chic

Filmmaker Sonam Nair, whose film Gippi (2013) explored body image and self-esteem and show Masaba Masaba talks about celebrities being scrutinised, says watching the conversation around Ariana Grande has left her conflicted. "I've been seeing her publicly over the last couple of years and feeling a little concerned myself," she says, "It's body-shaming, but it's also about health. It's complicated because she seems to be going through something, but that's her personal life and we should not be shaming her for it."

Sonam Nair

For Nair, the public response only reinforces the cycle that pushes celebrities towards drastic measures in the first place. "Constantly shaming her is probably what led to whatever this is," she says, "Being under scrutiny, being judged for your body and your looks, is what causes people to have extreme reactions, whether it's getting plastic surgery or taking drugs nowadays to lose weight. That scrutiny leads to these changes, and then people are scrutinised and ridiculed for those changes. It's a constant cycle."

As someone who grew up through shifting beauty standards, Nair believes the body positivity movement did leave behind something valuable. "Before it, there was open fat-shaming. Nobody had any filters," she says, "Now people think twice before commenting on women's bodies. There's at least an overall acceptance that all bodies can look good."

But beneath that acceptance, she sees a worrying shift. "There's a more underground, sinister thing happening where nobody is openly talking about it, but everybody is suddenly starting to look really thin," she says, "Especially in Hollywood, every other red carpet, I'm thinking, ‘This same person looked very different two years ago.' It's not as obvious as it was before, but psychologically, I'm sure it affects younger women and girls."